U.S. pointing to agricultural tax exemptions as justification for countervailing duties. The U.S. is about to slap countervailing duties on fresh mushrooms grown in Canada, as Canadian growers warn of broader risks to the farming sector on both sides of the border. A U.S. Commerce Department fact sheet released this week and shared with CBC by the Canadian Mushroom Growers'...
Defence Minister David McGuinty said Canada could contribute a vessel, demining assistance or satellite imagery if a mission to secure the Strait of Hormuz proceeds. Mr. McGuinty, who wrapped up a defence and trade visit to the United Arab Emirates and Qatar on Thursday, said a condition of this support would be “a durable cessation” of hostilities in the vital...
Prime Minister Mark Carney said on Thursday his government is open to selling public assets if the proceeds could help fund new infrastructure. The November federal budget and April spring economic statement both mentioned exploring new ownership options for the country's federally owned airports. As first reported by the Toronto Star, a transport ministry discussion paper published last week on...
Prime Minister Mark Carney unveiled Canada's long-awaited new electricity strategy Thursday, placing a heavy emphasis on expanding the role of natural gas in powering the grid as he seemed to distance the government from its 2030 Paris climate commitments. The new strategy looks to double Canada's electricity grid by 2050 and would adjust the clean electricity regulations to provide more...
The best place for Alberta to be is in Canada, Prime Minister Mark Carney said Thursday after a judge's decision to throw out a separatist petition in the province. "Certainly a Canada that works, which is what we're pursuing," Carney told reporters. "I think the evidence — well — others will judge."
The Ontario Progressive Conservatives continue to lead in provincial voting intentions, while the Ontario Liberals sit within striking distance, according to a new Leger survey of Ontarians.
A new Liaison Strategies survey shows Mayor Olivia Chow holding a 13-point lead over Councillor Brad Bradford among decided voters, while Torontonians express overwhelming frustration with traffic congestion and road construction coordination. If a mayoral election were held today among decided voters, Olivia Chow would receive 50% support, followed by Brad Bradford at 37% and another candidate at 13%. Among...
The recorded history of Canada stretches back more than 500 years; the unrecorded history, many thousands. It is one of the world’s oldest continuously existing democracies, with a Constitution whose principal features – monarchical, federal, parliamentary, with an independent judiciary and (ahem) an unelected Senate – have remained unchanged since 1867.
For the last torrid year in Alberta politics, so much seemed to be building toward a separation referendum this fall. Premier Danielle Smith eased the rules repeatedly for a pro-separatist petition to succeed. Right before a court first ruled against petitioners in December because of constitutional issues, her government rewrote a law to make that moot. She scheduled a series...
Conservatives are questioning why CBC is funding a spoof program that used false pretences to lure high-profile people accused of downplaying the damage caused by residential schools into sitting for interviews. Several current and former Conservative politicians have gone on social media to denounce the production "Northland Tales." The show is being produced for CBC and APTN. The show is...
The Carney government is putting a new emphasis on diplomacy with Persian Gulf countries -- one that goes beyond seeking investments in Canada to arrangements touching on defence and artificial intelligence. Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand made trips to both Oman and Qatar this week, while Defence Minister David McGuinty was in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. Prime Minister...
Is Canada on track to meet its climate goals? The honest answer is “no,” and the really honest answer is that Canada’s climate goals will never be reached. They are folly and were designed by climate idealogues who had no concept of consequence, economic reality, or un...
In the United States, the life expectancy is 78.4 years. In Canada, it’s 82.2. That would be a good statistic to insert into a response to America’s Canada-trashers, like Ambassador Pete Hoekstra or Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. A line like: “Dear Americans, if you want to live several years longer, move to Canada.” It’s a telling statistic. In the debate...
Civil liberties groups, legal experts and the Canadian Chamber of Commerce have been sounding the alarm for months on the privacy and cybersecurity issues contained in the Carney government’s Lawful Access Act, or Bill C-22. In a not-so-surprising twist, American lawmakers have now also added their voice to those warning about the bill.
Various experts have been assuring the public over the past several weeks that the risk of a major hantavirus outbreak is low. This is a known virus, they say, unlike the novel coronavirus first observed in 2019. It doesn’t pose pandemic potential, they say, because this Andes variant requires prolonged close contact to be transmitted from human to human.
A sense of inevitability has set into the public mood in Alberta, as it seems that a referendum on independence is going to happen this fall, in spite of a cascading series of dubious events. It shouldn’t be this way—no separatist party won an election on a clear mandate for a referendum, so there is no democratic legitimacy for one...
Americans are impatient with their chaotic President. For a shockingly long time, they seemed willing to shrug off his juvenile framing of complex issues. Some winced, many looked away. Millions marched, and the rest of the world wondered why it wasn’t millions more. Trump will never stop being Trump. But he’s got fewer cards. He’s spending billions on a war...
Perhaps the most attention-grabbing criticism of the Carney government's proposed changes to environmental regulations and permitting has come not from across the aisle, but from within the Liberal caucus — and is being framed as a comparison with the last Conservative prime minister. "This goes beyond what [Stephen] Harper proposed when he was in power," Steven Guilbeault, the former environment...
The controversy over Louise Arbour’s appointment as Governor-General is unusual in that both sides cite the same set of facts. She’s a former Supreme Court justice, say her supporters, a former international war-crimes prosecutor, and a former UN high commissioner for human rights, among a long list of other offices and laurels. Exactly, say her opponents: a bona fide member...
As Mark Carney often reminds us, he is not, as he puts it, “a career politician.” In many ways, that is a good thing. After two decades of rancorous, often toxic uber-partisanship, Carney’s no-nonsense, low-key approach is a welcome relief and reassuring to Canadians who have been deeply unnerved by Donald Trump’s ongoing attacks on our country.
On the recent anniversary of the April 2025 election that confirmed Mark Carney and the Liberals as Canada’s government, there were many analyses offered on what the year had achieved and what the next one might hold. But few people took a closer look at what the first year of Carney’s tenure has meant to the Official Opposition, the Conservative...
The political ground in Alberta could shift radically in the next few days. Premier Danielle Smith will finally have a weapon to slap down separatism. The separatist leaders, meanwhile, are also doing an excellent job of slapping down separatism. A pipeline and economic deal with Ottawa is widely expected.
Commenting on the trucker convoys that took place in 2022 in Ottawa and Coutts, Alta., prominent security analyst Wesley Wark said, “I think the history of the Freedom Convoy has really not settled into the Canadian consciousness.” “It may be some time before we really figure out for ourselves what was involved here, what was at stake,” Wark, a senior...
Prime Minister Mark Carney is avidly wooing the west — but will his own caucus trip him up? Last Friday, Carney met with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith to reassure her that Ottawa’s got her back on a second bitumen pipeline from Alberta to Canada’s West Coast. After the tête-à-tête Smith said, “This morning I said ‘if’ a deal gets signed...
A deal between Premier Smith and Prime Minister Carney. Very soon. Book your seat
On Friday evening, just before he had hoped to secure the Liberal nomination for a provincial byelection in Scarborough Southwest, Nate Erskine-Smith posted a video to his social media feeds that did not leave a lot of room for interpretation of his future plans. It was an endorsement, of sorts, from Prime Minister Mark Carney. Erskine-Smith, the MP for the...
There is only one way Alberta leaders’ contempt for Canada makes any sense. They don’t think they need Canada because, as David Parker says, 'we have America backing us'
If you haven’t seen Richard Warnica’s reports over the weekend in the Star on the leadership of the Alberta separatist movement, do yourself a favour: read them. Warnica spent time among people pushing the cause of Alberta independence and specifically with Mitch Sylvestre, the man he describes as the “architect” of the movement.
Building at speeds not seen in generations, as per Mark Carney’s oft-repeated election pledge, has been less hypersonic than the prime minister might have wished. As the new parliamentary budget officer pointed out last week in an analysis of the spring fiscal update, only two of 15 projects being overseen by Carney’s Major Projects Office are actually under construction, and...
It’s been a rollicking week in the nerdy world of data collection in Canada — the massive privacy breach of Alberta voter information, the disturbing revelations about how AI chatbots are mining personal details, and now on the heels of all that, national census day. Tuesday is the deadline for all Canadians to complete either a long-form or short-form census...
Something odd is happening in Canada’s national politics. Governing is usually a recipe for a short honeymoon followed eventually by a bitter divorce. Today’s man on the top of the wedding cake has a way of becoming tomorrow’s villain.
“I wish I knew how to quit you.” The line that defined the movie “Brokeback Mountain” is also, it turns out, a problem for the Leader of the Official Opposition. Pierre Poilievre cannot quit Justin Trudeau.
For generations, Canada’s foreign policy rested on a comfortable assumption: geography tied us to the United States, while values linked us to Europe. We never had to choose between the two because the Atlantic alliance functioned as one strategic community. That world has changed. This week, the European Delegation in Ottawa celebrated its 50th anniversary at a moment when the...
There’s an expression I heard years ago that I try to keep in mind for perspective on days when it feels like everyone in the world has been sent specifically to annoy and oppose me. The original version used naughty language, but I’ll clean it up for the sake of this venerable newspaper. It goes like this: If you wake...
Last week I reviewed mainly the domestic record of the government of Prime Minister Mark Carney over the past 13 months, although, as was mentioned, the principal point that Canadians seem to hold in his favour is the foreign policy perception of his ability ”to stand up to Trump.” Few could forget how Carney, with the connivance of the anti-conservative...
Prime Minister Mark Carney announced his government’s plan to double the capacity of Canada’s electricity grid by 2050, in part by potentially rolling back Trudeau-era regulations for clean electricity in a move that environment experts call “a huge betrayal.”
Prime Minister Mark Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith say they'll be in Calgary on Friday to announce the next step in their landmark energy pact. Carney says it will feature an implementation agreement on industrial carbon pricing and advance a potential new pipeline. Neither he nor Smith shared more details, but the premier told the legislative assembly it would...
The federal government’s proposal to legally allow projects to go ahead even if they result in an entire species going extinct is directed at projects, such as ports and pipelines, that jeopardize the existence of the endangered southern resident killer whale population, several sources told the Star Wednesday.
Secure messaging service Signal, which uses end-to-end encryption, is warning it would withdraw from Canada if asked to compromise its users’ privacy under Bill C-22, Ottawa’s proposed lawful access legislation. In an interview, Udbhav Tiwari, Signal vice-president of strategy and global affairs, said the company has deep concerns about measures in the bill, including its potential to introduce security vulnerabilities...
China's Xi Jinping warned President Donald Trump on Thursday that the two countries could clash over Taiwan if the issue was not handled properly, an unusually harsh admonition that stood in contrast to the American leader's praise for his counterpart. The exchange at a highly anticipated summit in Beijing underscored just how far apart Trump and Xi remain on thorny...
About half of Ontarians say their impression of Premier Doug Ford has worsened in recent months and 56 per cent believe the province is headed in the wrong direction, according to a new Postmedia-Leger survey. Barely over a third (36 per cent) of Ontarians surveyed believe the province is headed in the right direction.
Honda is “indefinitely” suspending plans for a $15-billion electric vehicle project in Ontario as part of a larger overhaul of the automaker’s business model. Honda Global CEO Toshihiro Mibe held a press briefing in Tokyo on Thursday, saying the company will focus on rebuilding its automobile business structure over the next three years and reallocate more resources to hybrid models...
The Liberal government is pushing ahead with a social media ban for youth, The Logic has learned. The same legislation is likely to include age restrictions for chatbots.
Both South Korea and Germany are making final pitches for a lucrative contract to build 12 submarines for Canada, with Berlin dispatching its defence minister for another visit to Ottawa and the Koreans sailing their offered vessel 14,000 kilometres for a ship visit to Victoria. Prime Minister Mark Carney has said he expects to make a decision by the end...
A new online survey suggests nearly a quarter of Canadians say they've declined to get a vaccine recommended by their doctor -- and the data indicates most of them did so because they were concerned about potential side effects. A report from Proof Strategies released Thursday -- which is World Vaccine Day -- explores how Canadians feel about vaccines and...
The federal government is pushing to get Canadian companies on major Chinese e-commerce platforms as the two countries deepen their ties. International Trade Minister Maninder Sidhu told The Canadian Press in a recent interview that China's e-commerce titans Alibaba and JD.com want more Canadian businesses on their platforms. "I want to help enable that," he said. "There are some options...
Visits by Canadians have cratered by 42% over the last year, cell phone data reveals. The boycott by Canadians of travel to the U.S., driven largely by an aversion to President Donald Trump, his industry-wrecking tariffs and 51st state taunts, has actually been more effective than previously thought, according to new data. While official Statistics Canada figures show a roughly...
President Donald Trump began his trip to Beijing on Thursday by telling Xi Jinping "it's an honor to be your friend," even as his Chinese counterpart offered a cautionary warning about avoiding a possible clash between the two nations. The stark contrast in tone underscored just how far apart the leaders remain on thorny issues including the war in Iran...
Premier Danielle Smith is rejecting the ruling of an Alberta judge who on Wednesday quashed a separatist petition and says the province will appeal the court ruling. In her written judgment, Justice Shaina Leonard ruled the petition should never have been issued because the provincial government failed in its duty to consult with First Nations and Alberta’s separation would be...
This week's announcement is expected to feature key dates surrounding Alberta's pipeline proposal. Alberta and the federal government are looking at a fall date for when Prime Minister Mark Carney’s cabinet will designate a pipeline to the West Coast as being in the national interest, National Post has learned. Building a new one-million barrel-a-day pipeline from Alberta to the West...
Buried deep in the pages of a discussion paper released Friday is the announcement that the government is open to and seeking a report on the potential amalgamation of certain unnamed “key ports” in Canada and “divestiture” of others.
There are questions as to why the Beaches—East York Liberal MP — whose own 2014 federal nomination win was challenged — and his team didn’t publicly raise concerns during the meeting Saturday.
Prime Minister Mark Carney is set to announce the federal government’s long-delayed clean electricity strategy on Thursday, according to senior federal sources. The strategy -- dubbed the National Electricity Agenda -- will lay out a plan to double Canada’s electricity grid capacity by 2050, sources say, amounting to the biggest buildout of the national grid in Canada’s history. The plan...
About 6,200 federal public servants have applied to retire early, with just more than two months to go until the deadline. The Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat website says 6,214 applications have been received as of May 12 and that eligible employees have until July 24 to apply. The program, which was launched in late March, is part of the...
A judge threw out an Alberta separatist petition Wednesday, ruling the province had a duty to consult with First Nations — a decision quickly declared "anti-democratic" by Premier Danielle Smith. Justice Shaina Leonard also said Alberta's chief electoral officer should never have issued the referendum petition. The premier promised an appeal. "This is a decision by one judge," said Smith...
Elections Alberta says the separatist group at the centre of a massive voter information breach may not have shared the full list of individuals who accessed its public database. The group, called the Centurion Project, created an app containing the names and addresses of nearly three million Albertans, which Elections Alberta traced back to an official voter list the group...
Vice-Admiral Angus Topshee, the head of the Royal Canadian Navy, is being promoted to second-in-command of the Canadian Armed Forces. The Department of National Defence confirms Topshee is replacing the retiring Lt.-Gen. Stephen Kelsey as vice-chief of the defence staff. Rear-Admiral Dan Charlebois is being promoted to the rank of vice-admiral and will assume command of the Navy.
The Canadian military is formally asking the defence industry to identify what companies can offer to either upgrade or replace Canada's aging fleet of tanks. The federal government published a request for information from potential suppliers so Ottawa can analyze options available on the market and start to draw up plans for future armoured land vehicle fleets.
Ottawa has spent more than $800 million on artificial intelligence technology since 2023, according to data provided by the federal government. The sum includes two previously announced deals: a $350 million public service contract with Dayforce to replace the troubled Phoenix pay system and a $240 million investment in the AI company Cohere.
Canadians are split on what they think should happen when a member of Parliament decides to change political parties, a new poll suggests. The survey of just over 1,000 people was conducted by Nanos Research for The Globe and Mail shortly after the Liberals secured a majority government in April, following three by-elections and five MPs crossing the floor since November.
Canada's headline carbon price was supposed to rise to $170/tonne by 2030.The federal government and the Alberta government are nailing down a deal on industrial carbon pricing, largely considered Canada's most important policy for driving down harmful greenhouse gas pollution. CBC News has confirmed that both levels of government have agreed that Alberta's effective carbon price would increase to $130/tonne...
Prime Minister Mark Carney will travel to Alberta on Friday to meet with Premier Danielle Smith and announce an update on the memorandum of understanding to build an oil pipeline to the British Columbia coast, Global News has learned. While sources tell Global News the details of what will be announced aren’t yet finalized, the expected public announcement comes after...
Prime Minister Mark Carney set an ambitious target last year for the country to double its non-US exports over the next decade, a goal that built on his election campaign pledge to make Canada’s economy less reliant on its southern neighbor. Since then, his government has claimed early signs of success. Its recent budget update said trade diversification efforts “are...
National messaging built around B.C.’s property rights debate risks oversimplifying a complex legal reality, while a failure to communicate has 'ceded the stage to fear and misinformation,' say pundits.
Ottawa and Alberta are close to finalizing a new accord on industrial carbon pricing that would result in the fee going up to $130 a tonne by 2040, two government sources, one federal and one provincial, said Tuesday. If approved, the agreement would dramatically roll back former prime minister Justin Trudeau’s marquee climate policy and set the stage for the...
China's Xi Jinping warned President Donald Trump on Thursday that the two countries could clash over Taiwan if the issue was not handled properly, an unusually harsh admonition that stood in contrast to the American leader's praise for his counterpart. The exchange at a highly anticipated summit in Beijing underscored just how far apart Trump and Xi remain on thorny...
BEIJING (AP) -- Trump invites Chinese President Xi Jinping for a Sept. 24 visit at the White House.
BEIJING (AP) -- President Donald Trump on Thursday kicked off a summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping that is expected to be long on pageantry and symbolism but unlikely to feature major breakthroughs on key issues like trade, U.S. relations with Taiwan or the war in Iran.
BEIJING (AP) -- President Donald Trump on Thursday kicks off the busiest portion of his China visit, a summit expected to be long on pageantry and symbolism but unlikely to feature major breakthroughs on key issues like trade, U.S. relations with Taiwan or the war in Iran.
The Carney government is putting a new emphasis on diplomacy with Persian Gulf countries -- one that goes beyond seeking investments in Canada to arrangements touching on defence and artificial intelligence. Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand made trips to both Oman and Qatar this week, while Defence Minister David McGuinty was in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. Prime Minister...
China's Xi Jinping warned President Donald Trump on Thursday that the two countries could clash over Taiwan if the issue was not handled properly, an unusually harsh admonition that stood in contrast to the American leader's praise for his counterpart. The exchange at a highly anticipated summit in Beijing underscored just how far apart Trump and Xi remain on thorny...
President Donald Trump began his trip to Beijing on Thursday by telling Xi Jinping "it's an honor to be your friend," even as his Chinese counterpart offered a cautionary warning about avoiding a possible clash between the two nations. The stark contrast in tone underscored just how far apart the leaders remain on thorny issues including the war in Iran...
After election victory, Reform UK leader says Canadian prairie populist Preston Manning is someone to emulate. Reform UK Leader Nigel Farage received a hero's welcome when he arrived late last week at a victory party in Chelmsford, an Essex commuter town on the outskirts of London, a world away from that city's centre of power. The silver-tongued leader of this...
A Senate bill headed for the House of Commons proposes to give the federal government explicit power to confiscate the assets of foreign states that are held in Canada, a measure that could help repurpose Russian funds for Ukraine’s reconstruction. Analysts say, however, that Prime Minister Mark Carney, with his majority in the Commons, will have to weigh the risks...
Coal is often treated as a relic of the past – dirty, declining, and politically toxic. Yet globally, it remains indispensable, the backbone of electricity systems in Asia and the primary input for global steelmaking.
When the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms came into force in 1982, many warned that it would undermine the foundations of Canada’s system of parliamentary democracy and usher in a new age of judicial supremacy. For a time, those concerns appeared overstated. Canadian courts exercised a degree of restraint, and the basic contours of Westminster parliamentary governance remained intact...
A collection of SubStack publishing within Canadian public affairs.
Canada’s privacy laws are supposed to protect ordinary citizens from unwarranted intrusions into their personal lives. But they can also protect pedophiles. Dead pedophiles. Dead pedophiles from America.
If you want to sound wise these days, just blame the crazy state of the world on polarization. If you want to sound really wise, say that fighting polarization needs to be part of the political agenda and be sure to blame social media and Donald Trump (although not necessarily in that order) for the current chaos. Despite it being...
An F-35 crash in Alaska should give shivers to Canada’s military. The pilot survived thankfully, but the $200 million plane was completely destroyed.
This week’s court ruling on the Alberta separation petition has only raised more questions about whether the province will be holding a referendum on independence this fall. Whatever next steps Premier Danielle Smith takes will come with a great degree of risk — for her party, for the province and for Canada.
In our first edition of a monthly segment, Steve is joined by “the most difficult man to introduce in Canada,” Bob Rae, to discuss how we are increasingly seeing behaviour in the world that is “tyrannical,” the fallout from the Iran War, why it has achieved nothing, why Canada must be more than just a bystander, and why Blaise Pascal’s...
The former Alberta Premier wants Canadians to wake up and realize they have to speak out to show Albertans that being in Canada matters. Is he right and what does our past tell us about what needs to be done? Plus, James Moore and Gerald Butts also have something to say about Canada's increasing ties to Europe.
